Self awareness is not thinking. That is cognition. A dandelion doesn’t think as we do as it has no brain nor nervous system. Yet it “knows” that it is this and not that. A stone or a star doesn’t. It is a conceit of human beings to think that the consciousness of other beings is somehow inferior because it is not like ours. A dandelion will fight for its survival as anybody who has ever maintained a lawn can attest. It will compete for water, soil, sun and growing space. Yet even at a smaller level, within the cells of the dandelion are machines made of just a few molecules. These machines bend proteins. They move within the cell with directed purpose carrying out the actions which need to be done for survival. Life is all about purpose.

Here is a transport protein in action. It has no brain. No nervous system. No onboard intelligence of any kind yet it reacts with the world. It will transport this molecule where it is needed within the cell and then go back for more. It is clearly self aware. Again, not with thought. But by its purposeful action.

In the midst of all the negativity that’s going on in the country and in the world right now with the civil unrest, China’s border disputes with India and foriegn disputes with places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea, we have one thing is going to make history in positive times.

As an aspiring engineer, I’ve been following this for a long time. SpaceX, a company by Elon Musk, is finally making history. It is the first time a private company is launching astronauts into space, with the help of NASA. Additionally, it was the first time a rocket would be launching on American soil since the shutting down of the space shuttle program long time ago.

Those are the two pioneers of private space travel, Douglas Hourly (right) and Robert Behnken (left). Hope the US laws will allow non-american citizens or green card holders to work for SpaceX. The launch was a huge success and I couldn’t be appear to believe that we are heading in the right direction in terms of the future of space travel. It was launched on June 5th 2020 as the Crew Dragon.

It was around the news that Elon Musk had infringed the cdc guidelines of social distancing and the limit of the number of people in a certain area. But, I believe that it was necessary. People (who are not scientifically driven) need to understand that launching a rocket only has a specific time interval in which (with some maneuvering) it can successfully meet the orbital path of the space station. They can’t launch at any time of the year because that wouldn’t be efficient because maneuvering the rocket would be way longer and tougher. If they delayed it now, they would have to wait for at least a year. So it’s best to get it into space now. And delaying the mission by about a year would cost a lot of money. I am just so happy today!

At least we can say that the covid-19 situation wasn’t all that bad, there was a very historical rocket launch.

The incredible, vanishingly small possibility of its existence, indeed the existence of any sort of life, any sort of organized matter beyond a hydrogen atom, let alone fully-formed thoughts sparking into being along complex electrical synapses controlled by the synchronized diffusion of ions that wouldn’t even exist if they weren’t born in stars — your existence, our existence, is so improbable as to be almost impossible.

And yet, we have the audacity to wish that this incredible coincidence had occurred differently that we might look different and match an arbitrary beauty standard. No. You’re a goddamn miracle and don’t you forget it.

Now that uni is over, of course I have started taking Coursera courses, haha. It seems like my brain never wants a break. Right now I am taking the “Learning How To Learn” course and I’m almost done with it. After, I’ll start with an “Astrobiology” course and I’m very excited about that one.

“Black Nitrogen” – Scientists Solve a Puzzle of the Periodic Table. Nicknamed “Black Nitrogen,” the new substance is crystalline, occurs in two-dimensional sheets, and could one day be useful in advanced electronics.https://ift.tt/2BwNVimhttps://ift.tt/2BwNVim

Submitted June 06, 2020 at 07:08PM by JediAditya
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